This invention relates generally to shoulder pads for football players and the like, and more particularly to a shoulder pad truss arch system which spreads impact loads over the shoulders of a football player.
Shoulder pads are generally designed to reduce and spread impact loads from colliding football players over the shoulders of the wearer. Heretofore, shoulder pad designs have included thick inner padding sections, inverted V-shaped flexible straps located between the inner padding sections and the hard outer layer of the shoulder pad, and various combinations of epaulets and web hinges. In particular, the hard outer layer and the inner padding section in combination have served to absorb the load. When impacted, conventional shoulder pads tend to transmit the load to the shoulder only in the immediate area of impact and do not spread the load over other areas of the shoulders, chest and back. However, a shoulder pad should spread the load over a large area of the shoulders, chest and back, since the greater the area over which the load is spread, the greater the load that can be absorbed.